Slow Horses–Win the Race

Slow Horses,   a multiple award-winning  British spy thriller based on the Slough House series of novels by Mick Herron, will have at least a six-season run due to its phenomenal popularity.  [The first four seasons are available for streaming now.]

MI5 recruits and some agents who have failed training or assignments are banished to Slough House, the tawdry hellhole (“slough”=swamp) for those destined to fail.  But they don’t.   The slow horses are ridiculed by the intelligence department at the top of the organization, particularly by the First Desk, Ingrid Tearney (the exceptional Sophie Okonedo) and Second Desk (the equally outstanding Kristin Scott Thomas),  They are pejoratively nicknamed “Slow Horses”, since they are expected to do the grunt work of MI5, with low expectations for even menial assignments.

The boss of Slough House, the grossly unhygienic and vulgar Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman in an unforgettable role), is miserable, curmudgeonly to the cusp of abusive, yet brilliant.  How did he end up the head of the “Slow Horses”?  That is the underlying conundrum of this series.

Enter River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), a privileged legacy recruit who is the grandson of an elite MI5 officer (Jonathan Pryce).  Aspiring to an illustrious career at MI5 headquarters, not Slough House, River is blamed for a failed assignment whose consequence is not only to be relegated to this cemetery for failed  agents,  but also to the scorn and contempt of both the First and Second Desk, and most of all, to the constant belittling and humiliation at the hands of Lamb. 

Nothing is as it seems.  Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves),  the office administrator at Slough House, is a recovering alcoholic, who looks out for Lamb out of fierce loyalty, and unravels more of the espionage capers than highly trained “slow horses”.  Lamb, often begrudgingly, defends his team when no one else will.  And Cartwright has his own backstory and is in need of a father-figure besides his imperious grandfather.

Attempts to look under the carapace of Lamb keep the viewer engaged.  Slow Horses offers unusual cinematic thrills, even intellectual nourishment, with superb writing and witty comebacks in dialogue between characters that can be simultaneously painful, baffling, sympathetic, vulnerable, and defensive. Each season has a new crime of espionage to solve, implicating corruption and deception, “enemies from within”.

Availability: AppleTV+

Note 1: The first episode may seem slow.  This viewer had to give the series a second chance.  Worth it!  Had to binge-view!

Note 2: Season 5 is scheduled for release in October 2025.